The present invention relates to railroad freight cars and in particular to a freight car for carrying motor vehicles on multiple levels.
Railroad freight cars have long been used for transporting newly manufactured automobiles long distances from either the place of manufacture or a port of arrival to a place where the automobiles are reloaded onto trucks that deliver the automobiles to dealerships. In order for such railroad freight cars to be most economical it is desirable to carry a maximum number of motor vehicles on each railroad car, but it is also desired to be able to carry several different types of motor vehicles on each car and to be able to reconfigure the railroad freight car to carry such different types of vehicles without undue difficulty.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,743,192, 5,794,537 and 5,979,335, the specifications of which are incorporated herein by reference, are owned by the assignee of the present invention and each discloses a multi-unit railroad freight car for carrying motor vehicles on multiple levels. In each of the disclosed freight cars, a plurality of motor vehicle decks are spaced apart inside the respective car bodies, wherein the decks are adjustable in height.
Each end portion of the middle level deck in each unit of the cars disclosed in the mentioned patents is mounted on a pivot axis at its inner end so that the outer end portion of the deck, located at the end of the car unit, may be raised and lowered to facilitate the loading and unloading of vehicles on the lowest level of the car. A cable and a hand-driven winch system are used to raise and lower the hinged portion of the deck. The deck is heavy, and many operators have difficulty raising and lowering it with only a manually operated mechanical winch.
It is therefore desired to be able to raise the end of the deck without having to rely on the hand-cranked winch system, using the limited amount of available space within such a railcar, while keeping the weight of the car as low as practical.
What is needed, then, is an improved railroad freight car in which a movable end portion of a load-carrying deck is of ample load-bearing strength, yet lower in weight than previously used decks, and wherein such a movable portion is arranged to be raised and lowered directly.